


Amortentia Accidens

by Ganymeme



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Crushes, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Maes is was and always will be absolutely head over heels for Gracia to the point of absurdity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21811543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ganymeme/pseuds/Ganymeme
Summary: Amortentia wasn't even taught until N.E.W.T. levels, so Roy was really not sure why Maes had gotten it into his head that some fourth year had slipped him some. (Harry Potter AU)
Relationships: Gracia Hughes/Maes Hughes
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Amortentia Accidens

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by some comments from Certain Someones, You Know Who you are. :P I then proceeded to have opinions about the Hogwarts house sorting of the FMA crew and then this happened. Many thanks to Aubergion for the beta-read and, as ever, to poor, beloved SerendipitousOracle for lambasting my grammar into some kind of shape. Any remaining flaws are mine, of course.

Roy was surrounded by the detritus of three hours of essay drafting, when his concentration and the library’s dusty silence were broken by the pounding of running feet. He looked up in time to see a blue and black blur barrel around the corner and fling itself into the opposite chair, very nearly upsetting a stack of books. _Ah_. Maes Hughes, the most annoying person Roy knew and, unfortunately, his best friend. Roy rolled his eyes and returned to his essay as Maes caught his breath.

"I," Maes declared, "have been cursed!"

Roy paused, quill hovering above the page, and watched as ink dripped down to blot his parchment. Reluctantly, with vivid memories of the time in third year when Maes had been hexed violently purple, he looked back up.

Maes looked… normal. A bit dishevelled, with his forelock askew and tie crooked, but normal. Roy squinted, suspicious.

"Shouldn't you be in the hospital wing, then?"

Maes shoved his glasses up his nose and stared at Roy dolefully. Like an overgrown puppy.

"Enchanted, Roy. Bespelled. Ensorcelled? Intoxicated? Whatever the word for 'slipped a love potion' is."

"Drugged?" Roy offered. Maes beamed at him, then pulled a face. 

"That's a bit muggle, isn't it?"

"Doesn't mean it's _wrong_ ," Roy retorted. He looked back down at his essay and grimaced. The ink blot had spread, taking over half his sentence before and above. Dammit. He'd been nearly done the paragraph, too. But Maes was clearly having _some_ sort of crisis… With a heavy sigh, Roy stuck the quill in the inkpot and sat back. 

Maes was still watching him. On anyone else, Roy would have called the expression one of exaggerated despair. On Maes, however, it was… normal. As normal as he got, anyway. Why anyone would slip his ridiculous idiot of a friend a _love potion_ , Roy had no idea.

"Why," Roy asked, already regretting every word he was about to say, "do you think someone's fed you a love potion?"

There was, it turned out, a girl. The most amazing, marvelous, fascinating girl in the world, to hear Maes go on about her. He had, he declared, never so much as seen her before today, when he had passed her in the hall and noticed her beautiful hazel-green eyes and heard her laugh.

"She laughed, Roy," Maes said, with a positively Shakespearian air of woe, "with this little snort at the end, and I thought it was the most charming sound I'd ever heard. That's not normal, is it? And I got all-all— _fluttery_."

Roy wished, not for the first time, that Madam Pince allowed coffee in the library. 

“Fluttery,” he repeated, and to his ears he sounded like a strangled cat. Maes, however, was staring into the distance so dreamily that Roy was almost convinced that someone _had_ hit Maes with at least some sort of Confundus Charm.

“Yeah,” Maes said, “you know, like after eating Flutterfizz, or before a Quidditch match or something.”

“Very romantic, Hughes,” Roy said sarcastically. Maes, who was so smart-mouthed he’d gotten himself detention from _Flitwick_ of all people, multiple times, went pale. Behind his glasses, his eyes grew comically wide.

“Oh no. I really _have_ been drugged, haven’t I? I don’t know when she could have done it, but then, she _is_ a Slytherin, and they are very sneaky.”

Roy stared at him, thoroughly unimpressed. This was absurd. He’d been making good progress on his essay, too, before Maes showed up.

“Very funny,” Roy said. “Stop taking the piss, Hughes.”

“I’m _not_ , Roy! This happened hours ago and I can’t stop thinking about her!”

Roy rubbed his forehead. He couldn’t actually feel a headache yet, but he could sure feel the threat of one.

“Merlin’s sake, Hughes, if you really think you’ve been cursed or something, go to the hospital wing. I don’t know what you expect _me_ to do.”

“Oh, well, you’re the potions genius,” was the not-entirely-unexpected reply. While it was vaguely, sort of, warming that Maes would say it so matter of factly, it did not change the fact that he was interrupting some of Roy’s few precious hours to get schoolwork done before his prefect duty shift started.

“My potions genius diagnosis is _go to the hospital wing_ and get out of my hair,” Roy retorted. 

Maes pouted at that, sulked for a bit, and then tried to get a look at Roy’s notes as if he would understand a single thing about Ancient Runes, or pre-Roman ritual symbology. Roy’s increasingly exasperated protests did nothing, as usual. Maes was finally chased off when Madam Pince’s student assistant came around to frown at them over an armload of books. The assistant—a seventh year named Falmark or Falcon or something—was a bit of a pushover himself, but Pince’s wrath was nothing to be scoffed at.

The weekend dragged on, as dull as any other mid-November weekend. Roy went straight from the library to hall patrol, and from hall patrol to dinner. At dinner he got roped into an argument about alchemy with Wittiker and Erbe before he could notice if Maes was there or not. Then he had dorm duty, squeezed in an hour of revision for transfiguration, and fell into bed some time near to midnight. It was only as he lay there, staring up at the deep blue canopy and listening to the familiar sounds of Erbe’s cat chewing its claws, that he realized he hadn’t seen Maes since the library.

He debated getting up, if just to stick his head out of the curtains to see if Maes was in bed or not. The tower was cold at night in November, though, and his blankets had only just gotten properly warm. Still weighing the pros and cons of moving, and haunted by a slight niggling worry for his friend, Roy drifted off to sleep.

Morning dawned exceptionally frosty, which Roy only knew because he was woken by Erbe banging around at some ungodly hour, grumbling about the cold and bloody-minded Quidditch coaches. Feeling exceptionally smug—Sundays were the only days Roy had absolutely nowhere to be before noon—Roy rolled over and almost drifted back to sleep before he remembered the missing Maes mystery. 

He launched himself out of bed, swore colourfully when his bare feet hit the cold floor, and fumbled for his wand. Erbe looked up from lacing up his boots and squinted. Or possibly he just hadn’t woken up yet. Roy couldn’t blame him.

“The hell you up for, Mustang?”

“Fuck if I know,” he grumbled. Wand in hand, he cast a warming charm on the floor around his bed and sighed with relief as the stones began radiating heat.

Erbe snorted. “You know slippers exist, yeah?”

“Shut—” Roy yawned, so widely his jaw cracked, “u-up. Have you seen Hughes?”

“Nope,” Erbe grunted. “If he came back last night, it was after me.”

“Oh.” Roy watched blearily as Erbe finished bundling himself up, until he was a shapeless blue-and-bronze blob. Maes’ bed, on the other side of Erbe, had the curtains wide open to reveal rumpled, but empty, bedding. Well, empty except for Erbe’s fluffy monster of a cat, who was currently turning circles on Maes’ pillow, purring loudly.

“Right,” Erbe said, muffled by a solid three layers of scarf, “I’m off. Have a good one, mate.”

“Yeah,” Roy said absently, wracking his brain for what the hospital wing’s visiting hours were. “You too.”

Dammit, what the hell had Maes gotten himself into?

Roy reluctantly threw on enough clothing to count as dressed for the Great Hall on a Sunday morning, grabbed his Transfiguration textbook, and headed down to a much earlier breakfast than he would have liked. The whole way down from the tower he had to fight the rising worry about _what if Maes actually HAS been cursed or something_ and if he had, how bad of a friend did that make Roy, for being totally unsympathetic, and for not recognizing any symptoms, and if this mysterious Slytherin girl really had drugged him, then why and—

And entirely too much thinking and anxiety for 7 AM on a Sunday, frankly. By the time he reached the doors of the Great Hall, he was seriously considering turning around and heading straight for the hospital wing. His stomach was in enough knots that he wasn’t at all sure he could eat anything, anyway.

Then he pushed the doors open, skirted around a babbling clump of Gryffindors, and stopped dead in his tracks. There was Maes, sitting at the Ravenclaw table, mechanically shovelling eggs into his mouth with the same ‘I am nowhere near awake yet’ look he had every morning. His hair, ungelled, was a shaggy disaster, and he was wearing that hideous fluffy purple houserobe. 

Roy’s initial rush of relief gave away swiftly to irritation. Scowling, Roy stalked over to the table and swatted the back of Maes’ head as he dropped onto the bench.

“Idiot,” he growled. Maes’ fork missed his mouth and smushed scrambled egg into his cheek.

“Oy! What was that for?”

Roy huffed and reached for the nearest steaming pot. Porridge, it turned out, with berries and clumps of slowly melting sugar. Good enough. No coffee in sight yet, but he was sure that would change.

“For being an idiot,” he grumbled. Clearly Maes had just been taking the piss yesterday, for Merlin knew what reason. Roy wasn’t about to give him the pleasure of admitting to having three different existential crises on his way down here.

Luckily, Maes was next to useless for the first couple hours he was awake so he just blinked at Roy, said “Oh”, and went back to his eggs.

It turned out there were benefits to getting up early on a Sunday: more copies of the Prophet floating around intact, and many more options for food. Usually Roy ended up contenting himself with toast and cold rashers and whatever pastries were left over by the time he wandered down around 11. Not at all a proper breakfast, not by Aunt Chris’ standards.

He was well into a plate of beans and _hot_ rashers and some sort of fried potato business that he didn’t recognize but was definitely delicious, book propped open in front of him, when a murmur ran through the scattered clumps of Ravenclaws at the table. He looked up to see an unfamiliar girl, bobbed hair framing her stubbornly tilted chin, approaching them.

No, scratch that, approaching him. She wasn’t a Ravenclaw, he knew that much, but McGonagall’s stern _prefects are responsible for all students, not just your house_ echoed in his ears and he straightened up, attempting to look authoritative and responsible despite his haphazard layering of old winter cloak on top of a muggle hoodie. 

The girl, who was also in weekend clothes, stopped nervously a few feet away. Roy tried a smile, hoping to put her at ease. He couldn’t really tell if it worked. She took a deep breath and then paused, her eyes flickering away from Roy to someone beside him. Maes, he assumed, and the garish purple monstrosity he was wearing.

“Can I help you, Miss…?” he prompted, praying his voice didn’t crack.

“Elstow. Er, Gracia Elstow,” she said. “Um, you’re Roy Mustang, right?”

“Uh, yes, what can I do for you?” Huh. Not asking for a prefect, but for him by name? Roy tried not to let himself deflate, in case she _was_ still looking for a prefect.

“Professor Babbling suggested I talk to you—about the fourth year translation project?”

The fourth year…? Merlin, Roy wasn’t even sure he remembered his fourth year, definitely not at this hour of the morning.

“Uh, I’m… in fifth year?” Maybe she had him confused for someone else. No idea who, there weren’t any other Mustangs in the school, and none of the Ravenclaw fourth years had a name similar to his.

Elstow blushed. “Oh! Yes, I know, I mean, I’ve picked a topic that I guess is similar to what you did? And I’ve been having trouble finding resources, so Babbling told me I should talk to you. Not, uh, not right now. I just, I saw you, so I thought…” 

Roy blinked at her, feeling a bit stunned by the torrent of words. She trailed off with a sigh, already looking disappointed.

Merlin’s arse, what _had_ Roy done for his fourth year translation project? He couldn’t remember for the life of him. He’d have to owl Aunt Chris, ask her to look for his fourth year stuff.

“Uh, yeah, yeah we can do that. Maybe…” Roy ran through his schedule in his head, hunting for any possibly free time. “... Tuesday? Around teatime?”

Elstow perked up, smiling hesitantly. “Yeah, Tuesday works! Thanks ever so! See you then!”

With a cheery wave she left, very nearly skipping as she went.

From somewhere behind him, Lena McTavish muttered, “She’s a Slytherin you know, Mustang.”

Roy rolled his eyes as he turned back to his breakfast. “So? We’re not Gryffindors, are we?” Then he sniggered, and elbowed Maes. “Hey, Hughes, she was Slytherin.”

Maes made an odd choked noise and Roy looked over in alarm. Maes was still half turned in his seat, staring over Roy’s shoulder, and his face was doing an excellent imitation of a tomato.

Roy stared. “Uh, Hughes?”

“ _Thatwasher_ ,” he squeaked out, so fast Roy barely understood. 

“You’re joking,” Roy said flatly. “C’mon Hughes, it was barely funny yesterday.”

“I’m not _joking_!” Maes very nearly wailed, unfreezing and slumping dramatically over his empty plate and swiftly cooling tea.

Down the table from them, Roy saw Lena raise her eyebrows and mouth a silent ‘oo-kay’ before turning very deliberately away. Why, he wondered again, had he ended up friends with this idiot?

“You really think she gave you a love potion,” Roy said flatly. She hadn’t _looked_ like someone who would dole out love potions to unsuspecting Ravenclaws, but then, you never knew. Especially with Slytherins.

Maes’ face was now buried in his hands, and his response came out too muffled for Roy to hear. Roy sighed heavily.

“Didn’t get that, Hughes.”

Maes, still tomato-red, raised his face out of his hands and glared at Roy, his glasses awkwardly sliding back down his nose.“I _said_ , Pomfrey said I was full of it. But I—she—didn’t you—didn’t you _see_ her? And that—blush—and—”

Roy edged sideways away from Maes’ flailing hands as he fruitlessly attempted to seize words from thin air or… whatever he was trying to do, besides make a fool of himself and take Roy’s head off.

“I mean, she was… alright, I guess,” Roy offered weakly. She had looked, like, well. A girl. Kind of plain, really, with pale eyes and light brown hair.

Maes groaned, slumping once more, chin in hand.

“Oh you’re useless. Where’s Erbe when you need him?”

“I’m gay, Maes, as you know,” Roy pointed out drily. “So you’ve got a crush. I really don’t know what the big deal is.”

This prompted another thoroughly incoherent outburst of wordless squawking. Roy shook his head and turned away, intent on finishing his meal before Maes could distract him further. Much like the toddlers Roy always ended up watching over the holidays, with no attention on him Maes soon calmed down. Instead, he sank into a gloomy silence, so dark it was nearly palpable. Roy managed to ignore it long enough to finish his breakfast, but then he pushed the empty plate away and sat back with a sigh.

“What, Hughes?” he demanded. 

Instead of the expected dramatics, however, Maes just switched which hand his chin was propped in, so he could look at Roy.

“I looked like a complete idiot, I just know it,” he said, “and I couldn’t even get three words out when she was over here.”

“She was talking to me, not you,” Roy said. Maes pulled a face.

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in, why don’t you?”

“Rub it—oh, Merlin’s fucking tits, Maes, you know—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, sorry, I just…”

When he looked up at Roy this time, it was with a much tamer version of the overdramatic pleading puppy eyes from the day before.

“What do I _do_?”

Roy shrugged. “Ask her out?”

Maes groaned. “Did you miss the part where I _looked like an idiot_?”

“You look like an idiot most of the time,” Roy said. “Erbe and I still like you.”

Maes pulled a face, clearly unconvinced by what even Roy had to admit was a fairly unrousing vote of confidence. 

“Look,” Roy said, “come along on Tuesday. Bring something to work on. We can talk Ancient Runes and you can try to get as far as saying ‘Hello my name is’, how’s that sound?”

With a delighted whoop, Maes threw his arms around Roy’s shoulders, yanking him sideways and shaking him with glee. 

That was a yes then, Roy supposed. He just really hoped he wasn’t going to regret this.

**Author's Note:**

> Highlights from Oracle's beta comments on Roy's mangling of poor Falman's name: "hallmark: the magic library card company".


End file.
